Rowland’s promise to the Cavaliere obliged him to withdraw from an excursion which he had arranged with the two ladies from Northampton.  Before going to Casa Light he repaired in person to Mrs. Hudson’s hotel, to make his excuses.

He found Roderick’s mother sitting with tearful eyes, staring at an open note that lay in her lap.  At the window sat Miss Garland, who turned her intense regard upon him as he came in.  Mrs. Hudson quickly rose and came to him, holding out the note.

“In pity’s name,” she cried, “what is the matter with my boy?  If he is ill, I entreat you to take me to him!”

“He is not ill, to my knowledge,” said Rowland.  “What have you there?”

“A note—­a dreadful note.  He tells us we are not to see him for a week.  If I could only go to his room!  But I am afraid, I am afraid!”

“I imagine there is no need of going to his room.  What is the occasion, may I ask, of his note?”

“He was to have gone with us on this drive to—­what is the place?—­to Cervara.  You know it was arranged yesterday morning.  In the evening he was to have dined with us.  But he never came, and this morning arrives this awful thing.  Oh dear, I ’m so excited!  Would you mind reading it?”

Rowland took the note and glanced at its half-dozen lines.  “I cannot go to Cervara,” they ran; “I have something else to do.  This will occupy me perhaps for a week, and you ’ll not see me.  Don’t miss me—­learn not to miss me.  R. H.”

“Why, it means,” Rowland commented, “that he has taken up a piece of work, and that it is all-absorbing.  That ’s very good news.”  This explanation was not sincere; but he had not the courage not to offer it as a stop-gap.  But he found he needed all his courage to maintain it, for Miss Garland had left her place and approached him, formidably unsatisfied.

“He does not work in the evening,” said Mrs. Hudson.  “Can’t he come for five minutes?  Why does he write such a cruel, cold note to his poor mother—­to poor Mary?  What have we done that he acts so strangely?  It ’s this wicked, infectious, heathenish place!” And the poor lady’s suppressed mistrust of the Eternal City broke out passionately.  “Oh, dear Mr. Mallet,” she went on, “I am sure he has the fever and he ’s already delirious!”

“I am very sure it ’s not that,” said Miss Garland, with a certain dryness.

She was still looking at Rowland; his eyes met hers, and his own glance fell.  This made him angry, and to carry off his confusion he pretended to be looking at the floor, in meditation.  After all, what had he to be ashamed of?  For a moment he was on the point of making a clean breast of it, of crying out, “Dearest friends, I abdicate:  I can’t help you!” But he checked himself; he felt so impatient to have his three words with Christina.  He grasped his hat.

“I will see what it is!” he cried.  And then he was glad he had not abdicated, for as he turned away he glanced again at Mary and saw that, though her eyes were full of trouble, they were not hard and accusing, but charged with appealing friendship.